USS Washington, hull number BB-56, was the second and final member of the of fast battleships, the first vessel of the type built for the United States Navy. Built under the Washington Treaty system, North Carolinas design was limited in displacement and armament, though the United States used a clause in the Second London Naval Treaty to increase the main battery from the original armament of nine guns to nine guns. The ship was laid down in 1938 and completed in May 1941, while the United States was still neutral during World War II. Her initial career was spent training along the East Coast of the United States until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into the war.
Washington was initially deployed to Britain to reinforce the Home Fleet, which was tasked with protecting convoys carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. She saw no action during this period, as the German fleet remained in port, and Washington was recalled to the US in July 1942 to be refitted and transferred to the Pacific. Immediately sent to the south Pacific to reinforce Allied units fighting the Guadalcanal campaign, the ship became the flagship of Rear Admiral Willis Lee. She saw action at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of 14–15 November in company with the battleship and four destroyers. After South Dakota inadvertently drew heavy Japanese fire by sailing too closely to Admiral Nobutake Kondō's squadron, Washington took advantage of the Japanese preoccupation with South Dakota to inflict fatal damage on the Japanese battleship and the destroyer , while avoiding damage herself. Washingtons attack disrupted Kondō's planned bombardment of U.S. Marine positions on Guadalcanal and forced the remaining Japanese ships to withdraw.
From 1943 onward, she was primarily occupied with screening the fast carrier task force, though she also occasionally shelled Japanese positions in support of the various amphibious assaults. During this period, Washington participated in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign in late 1943 and early 1944, the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign in mid-1944, and the Philippines campaign in late 1944 and early 1945. Operations to capture Iwo Jima and Okinawa followed in 1945, and during the later stages of the Battle of Okinawa, Washington was detached to undergo an overhaul, though by the time it was completed, Japan had surrendered, ending the war. Washington then moved to the east coast of the US, where she was refitted to serve as a troop transport as part of Operation Magic Carpet, carrying a group of over 1,600 soldiers home from Britain. She was thereafter decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 1960 when she was stricken from the naval register and sold for scrap the next year.
Design
The North Carolina class was the first new battleship design built under the Washington Naval Treaty system; her design was bound by the terms of the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936, which added a restriction on her main battery of guns no larger than . The General Board evaluated a number of designs ranging from traditional battleships akin to the "standard" series or fast battleships, and ultimately a fast battleship armed with twelve 14-inch guns was selected. After the ships were authorized, however, the United States invoked the escalator clause in the treaty that allowed an increase to guns in the event that any member nation refused to sign the treaty, which Japan refused to do.
Washington was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of . Her standard displacement amounted to and increased to at full combat load. The ship was powered by four General Electric steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Rated at , the turbines were intended to give a top speed of . The ship had a cruising range of at a speed of . She carried three Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes for aerial reconnaissance, which were launched by a pair of aircraft catapults on her fantail. Her peace-time crew numbered 1,800 officers and enlisted men, but the crew swelled to 99 officers and 2,035 enlisted during the war.
The ship was armed with a main battery of nine 16 in /45 caliber Mark 6 guns guns in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward, with the third aft. The secondary battery consisted of twenty /38 caliber dual purpose guns mounted in twin turrets clustered amidships, five turrets on either side. As designed, the ship was equipped with an anti-aircraft battery of sixteen guns and eighteen .50-caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns, but her anti-aircraft battery was expanded greatly during her career.
The main armored belt was thick, while the main armored deck was up to thick. The main battery gun turrets had thick faces, and they were mounted atop barbettes that were protected with the same thickness of steel. The conning tower had thick sides. The ship's armor layout had been designed with opponents equipped with 14-inch guns in mind, but since the treaty system broke down just before construction began, her design could not be revised to improve the scale of protection to defend against heavier guns. Despite this shortcoming, the North Carolina class proved to be more successful battleships than the better-armored but very cramped .
Modifications Washington received a number of upgrades over the course of her career, primarily consisting of radar and a new light anti-aircraft battery. The ship received three Mark 3 fire-control radar sets for the main battery, four Mark 4 radars for the secondary guns, a CXAM air-search radar, and an SG surface-search radar. During her early 1944 refit, she received an SK air-search radar in place of the CXAM and a second SG radar; her Mark 3 radars were replaced with more advanced Mark 8 sets, though she retained one of the Mark 3s as a backup. Her Mark 4 radars were later replaced with a combination of Mark 12 and Mark 22 sets. In her final refit in August and September 1945, she had an SK radar forward, an SR air-search set aft, and an SG radar in both positions. A TDY jammer was installed on her forward fire control tower.
Washingtons 1.1 in battery was replaced with forty Bofors guns in ten quadruple mounts in April 1943, and in August, the number of guns had increased to sixty in fifteen quadruple mounts. Her original light battery of eighteen .50-cal machine guns was decreased to twelve and twenty Oerlikon autocannon in single mounts were installed in early 1942. In June, she had her .50-cal battery increased to twenty-eight barrels, but by September, all were replaced in favor of a uniform battery of forty 20 mm cannon. During the April 1943 refit, her anti-aircraft armament was increased to a total of sixty-four 20 mm cannon. A year later, in April 1944, she lost one of the single mounts in favor of an experimental quadruple 20 mm mount. In November 1944, the ship was slated to have the battery reduced to 48 barrels, but this never happened and instead, in early 1945, she had eight single mounts replaced with eight twin mounts, bringing her final 20 mm battery to seventy-five guns.
Service history
The keel for Washington was laid down on 14 June 1938 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Her completed hull was launched on 1 June 1940, and after completing fitting-out work, she was commissioned into the fleet on 15 May 1941. She began builder's sea trials on 3 August, but like her sister ship , she suffered from excessive vibration while running at high speed from her original three-bladed screws. Tests with North Carolina produced a workable solution (though the problem was never fully corrected): two four-bladed screws on the outer shafts and two five-bladed propellers on the inboard shafts. Tests continued during her shakedown cruise and subsequent initial training, which were conducted along the East Coast of the United States, as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. She conducted high speed tests in December, during which she failed to reach her designed speed due to the vibration problems.
During this period, the United States was still neutral during World War II. Washington frequently trained with North Carolina and the aircraft carrier , with Washington serving as the flagship of Rear Admiral John W. Wilcox Jr., the commander of Battleship Division (BatDiv) 6, part of the Atlantic Fleet. Her initial working up training continued into 1942, by which time the country had entered the war as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's subsequent declaration of war. Modifications to the ship's screws continued as late as February 1942, but these also proved unsuccessful.
Atlantic operations With the country now at war, Washington was assigned as the flagship of Task Force (TF) 39, still under Wilcox's command, which departed for Britain on 26 March. The unit, which included Wasp and the heavy cruisers and , were to reinforce the British Home Fleet based in Scapa Flow. The Home Fleet had been weakened by the need to detach units, particularly Force H, to take part in the invasion of Madagascar, and the American battle group was needed to help counter the German battleship and other heavy surface units based in occupied Norway. The next day, while crossing the Atlantic, Wilcox was swept overboard. Tuscaloosa and a pair of destroyers searched for the admiral, and Wasp sent aircraft aloft to assist the effort, but lookouts on the destroyer spotted him, face down in the water, having already drowned. The search was called off and the task force continued on to its destination. Rear Admiral Robert C. Giffen, aboard Wichita, took command of the unit, which was met at sea by the British cruiser on 3 April. The ships arrived in Scapa Flow two days later, where it came under the command of Admiral John Tovey, the commander of the Home Fleet.
For the rest of the month, Washington and the other American ships were occupied with battle practice and familiarization training with the Home Fleet to prepare the different countries' ships for joint operations. TF 39 was redesignated TF 99 in late April, Washington still serving as the flagship. The ships embarked on their first operation on 28 April to conduct a sweep for German warships ahead of the supply convoy PQ 15 to the Soviet Union. The ships of TF 99 operated with elements of the Home Fleet, including the battleship and the carrier . During the operation, King George V accidentally rammed and sank the destroyer ; Washington was following too closely to avoid the wreckage, and as she passed over the sinking destroyer, Punjabis depth charges exploded. The shock from the blast damaged some of Washingtons radars and fire-control equipment and caused a small leak in one of her fuel tanks. King George V had to return to port for repairs, but Washington and the rest of TF 99 remained at sea until 5 May. The ships stopped at Hvalfjörður, Iceland, where they took on supplies from the supply ship .
The ships remained in Iceland until 15 May, when they got underway to return to Scapa Flow, arriving there on 3 June. The next day, Admiral Harold Rainsford Stark, the Commander of Naval Forces Europe, visited the ship and made her his temporary headquarters. On 7 June, King George VI came aboard to inspect Washington, and after Stark left she resumed escorting convoys in the Arctic; these included convoys QP 12, PQ 16, and PQ 17. The first two occurred at the same time, with QP 12 returning from the Soviet Union while PQ 16 carrying another load of supplies and weapons. Washington, Victorious, and the battleship provided distant support but was not directly engaged by the German U-boats and aircraft that raided PQ 16; QP 12 largely evaded German attention and passed without significant incident.